Server Rebuild

So the next step is getting the TV server running again. I created a 2008R2 Standard VM for this and installed Mezzmo.

The trick is getting the 1TB or so of video, music photos and software installers that were previously shared on the network by the previous server onto the new TV server box. I tried moving the HDD physically over to the ESX box but for whatever reason you can't add a raw disk to an ESX vm the way you can in workstation. Sure you can add a SAN as a raw disk but not a NTFS disk which I found odd.

Ok... Have to do it the hard way. I created a big temporary disk for the TV Server on the main HDD of the new server, cranked the old server up again and began copying the files across the network. About 6 hours later this process was complete.

Then I put the HDD into the new server, added it as a datastore (which formats it for VMFS and wipes anything that was on it - god I hope I got everything off!) then I added it as a disk to the TV Server. I then began copying the files BACK from the temporary space I created onto the HDD from the old server. In  a few hours  it might be complete... sigh...

Mean while I was looking the the new VT-D magic. Now the Asrock pro3 says it supports it and in the BIOS there is a setting for it but the BIOS says it isn't supported by the processor. I found this odd so I did some more digging.

For some bizarre reason the i7-3770K model (which is a tiny bit faster and unlocked) DOES NOT support vt-d but the cheaper 3770 (without the K) DOES. I am talking to the store now to see if I can swap it. I don't like my chances. Probably not the end of the world but it would be nice in terms of IO speed (both disk and LAN).

Tom